Tacky the Penguin - Voice

I have really loved coordinating these past couple lessons to revolve around a single book - Tacky the Penguin. It has not only given me direction as I plan lessons, but also provided continuity for the students as they build upon their knowledge of this book. I see how the students are getting excited about the characters and plot as they get to know them better. It also allows them to feel really successful because we're not switching around what we're talking about every week, so they can feel more prepared.

Today, we did activities with the same book as last week, Tacky the Penguin. But instead of focusing on the movement of characters, we did games and activities that focused on voice. Through these activities and exercises, the students didn't know it, but they were actually preparing for a performance we will be putting on in a couple of weeks.

One piece of advice I got from my faculty mentor was to prepare the students for difficult tasks by showing a lot of confidence in them, but also challenging them. So to start out with our warm-up (which required a lot of concentration and following directions), I told them that the activity we were about to do was kind of like a second or third grade level, so I wasn't sure if they were going to be successful. But then I said that I knew that if they committed to listen really well and focus, they would be able to do it. Well of course they agreed that they were up to the challenge! And I found that when I set those really high expectations for them, they responded really well and were very attentive throughout the warm up.

In this lesson, I tried a lot of new things that I honestly wasn't sure if the students were up for. But I found that as I set clear expectations for them and adjusted my plans to how the lesson was going, they totally rose to the occasion and we had a great, fun lesson!

I have also become a lot more comfortable with giving up some control with first graders. In order to foster their creativity, it is impossible to keep them quiet and focused all the time - they're 6 or 7 years old! So I also let go of some of my desire for perfect control in this lesson and just let myself enjoy their creativity. It makes me more relaxed, as long as I still understand which rules are important and which instructions I still expect the students to follow. I was able to enjoy teaching a lot more with this mindset.

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